Received
wisdom suggests that the American Civil War was an almost all-army affair, with
the navies reduced to something of a sideshow—occasionally spectacular but
ultimately moot.[1]
Certainly the vast majority of participants North and South fought their battles
on land: about 3.6 million men served in the armies as compared to a mere
137,500 sailors.[2]
Soldiers’ experiences comprised the bulk of diaries, letters, and official
correspondence, as well as being the basis for later research. But does this sea
of ink hide an historical truth—one that was recognized at the time but later
forgotten?

What
relegated the Union Navy to a seemingly secondary role was the absence of an
opponent on a scale with itself. This is not to say that the Confederate Navy
did not fight, but that its role and structure differed greatly from that of the
USN. This was dictated in part by circumstance: the South did not have the
manufacturing capacity to create and maintain a high seas fleet. But the
decision not to attempt construction of a large navy was a conscious one made by
Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory. To win the Civil War, the South need only
defend what it had, demonstrating that it could survive until recognized by
foreign powers. The CSN focused on the defense of harbors and rivers,
undertaking local attacks as a means to this end rather than as part of any
grand offensive strategy.[3]

Because
the operations of the Confederate Navy did not much impact those of the Union
Army it is easy to overlook the roles played by the Union Navy. These included
blockading the ports of the South, pursuing Confederate commerce raiders,
patrolling the rivers behind the front, and directly engaging the Confederate
Army—usually in conjunction with the Federal army, but often independently. Of
these roles two are relevant to this thesis: the blockade and direct combat
(with tactical as well as strategic consequences).

The
Blockade

“Great
scarcity of even the necessaries of life”

In
simplest terms, the American Civil War was a race between the North’s will to
win and the South’s capacity to wage war. The Confederacy’s weakness was
neither lack of ability nor, initially, manpower, but material resources. In
1860, the South produced barely one-tenth of the manufactured goods in the
nation; there was more factory capability in New York City than in all the South. To
remedy this, Richmond turned to Europe for its weapons.
Interdicting this supply line was the job of the U.S. Navy.

Starting
with 7,000 men and forty functioning ships, the Navy expanded to 51,500 men and
670 ships by 1865--fully 500 of which were on blockade duty.[4]
Such a force would seem sufficient to bottle up the limited number of Southern
deep-water harbors, but only the capture of a port ensured its closure. The
steamers of the Confederate Ordnance Department managed to deliver 80% of the
$12¼ million worth of equipment purchased in Europe, while $200 million is the
accepted figure for the value of private shipments.[5]
Through the blockade came 60% of the Confederacy’s arms, 33% of its bullet
lead, 75% of its gunpowder, and most of the army’s leather and uniforms.[6]
A single ship could make a difference: In November 1861 the runner Fingal brought in enough arms and ammunition to enable the
Confederates to fight the battle of Shiloh the following spring.[7]As
supplies came in, cotton went out: Of 10,412 bales shipped by the Confederate
Treasury Department before November 1864, only 1037 were captured—less than
10%.[8]
Bales that went for 8¢ or 9¢ a pound on the dock at Charleston sold for 80¢-90¢ a pound
in Europe, providing hard currency for
the South.

And yet,
the Federal blockade was a success—not in the number of ships intercepted or
contraband taken, but in its effect on the Southern economy. Although the odds
of evading Union warships were never lower than 50-50, the possibility of capture made the enterprise a risky one. This fact
alone would have raised prices, but the situation was worsened by the Southern
elite’s insistence upon maintaining its pre-war lifestyle. Navy reports
routinely listed cognac, wine, rugs, furniture, jewelry, silk, and corset stays
among captured cargoes. The greatest profits for officers aboard runners came
not from salaries but from private shipment of such luxury goods. The
Confederate government sought to limit this merchandise, but their efforts were
largely ignored. Profits from luxuries were too alluring, and hull space that
could have been devoted to foodstuffs, medicines, clothing, and weapons was not.

The effect
on the Confederate economy was felt as early as May 1861 and became
catastrophic, as illustrated by the rise in the cost of salt—an important
commodity in a pre-refrigeration age. A 200 pound sack that went for 50¢ in
pre-war New Orleans doubled to $1 by summer 1861
and then rose to $6 (Richmond); in 1862 it jumped to $25 (Savannah) and peaked at $100 (Richmond); from 1863, the price
“settled” to between $50 and $75.[9]
Other foodstuffs were similarly affected: between May 1863 and the end of the
war, bacon rose from $1 to $4 a pound and a bushel of beans from $4 to $30.[10]Families of soldiers
being paid $14 monthly were in dire straits. The clamor for food began in autumn
1862 and grew into riots the following spring.Union Admiral DuPont reported on 23 April 1862, “I had abundant evidence of
the stringency of the blockade in the great scarcity of even the necessaries of
life, and the very high price demanded for both food and clothing, further shown
by the prices current as given in the Southern papers, the most essential
articles being continually on the rise.”[11]Demoralization at home, communicated in letters to the front, contributed
to the increasing rate of desertion in the Confederate armies, which suffered
heavily after 1863.

The lack
of a reliable infrastructure for distributing the resources of the South is
often cited as the root cause of its shortages. But the problem began on the
docks, not at the railheads, and affected exports, too. While stopping only a relatively
small percentage of shipped cotton, in absolute terms the blockade cut
that export by two-thirds: The three years prior to 1861 saw an average of a
million bales of cotton a year ship from Southern ports; the last three years of
the war together saw only a million bales shipped. This alone would have led to
inflation as the Confederacy used up its supply of hard currency, but the
situation was made worse by the trade in luxury goods demanded by the Southern
aristocracy.[12]
Inflation devastated the lower and middle classes and undermined Southern credit
overseas. General William T. Sherman is often credited with instituting total
war by targeting the enemy home front, but his was only a more dramatic version
of a battle the Navy had begun three years earlier.

The
Battlefield: Shiloh

“Gunboats,
which alone saved him from complete disaster”

In
addition to waging this economic war, the U.S. Navy directly engaged Confederate
armies. Twice in 1862 Union gunboats saved major Northern armies from destruction
and denied the South victories that would have ended the war.

The first
of these took place on 6 April at Shiloh, Tennessee. Confederate forces under
Albert Johnston surprised the Union army of U.S. Grant, pushing it back against
the Tennessee River. The crisis of the battle
took place at dusk as the rebels rallied for what many believed would be the
final charge. Although present for much of the day, the gunboats Tyler and Lexington had been unable to take part
in the day’s fighting due to the broken and overgrown nature of the ground.
But, as Grant recorded, “about sundown, when the National troops were back in
their last position, the right of the enemy was near the river and exposed to
the fire of the two gunboats, which was delivered with vigor and effect.”[13]
Confederate General Beauregard reported “It was after 6 p.m. . . . when the enemy's last
position was carried, and his forces finally broke and sought refuge behind a
commanding eminence covering Pittsburg Landing, not more than half a mile
distant, and under the guns of the gunboats, which opened on our eager columns a
fierce and annoying fire with shot and shell of the heaviest description.”[14]
The rebel attack was stopped. In his address to his troops following the battle,
Beauregard commended his men for driving the enemy “from his camps to the
shelter of his iron-clad gunboats, which alone saved him from complete
disaster.” Even Northern General
Halleck, “in spite of his contempt for the Navy, concluded that only the Union gunboats had kept Grant’s army from being
destroyed.”[15]
Nor did the Navy’s contribution end with the repulse of the Southern army:

[Grant]
After nightfall, when firing had entirely ceased on land, the commander of the
fleet informed himself, approximately, of the position of our troops and
suggested the idea of dropping a shell within the lines of the enemy every
fifteen minutes during the night. This was done with effect, as is proved by the
Confederate reports.[16]

[Beauregard]
During the night the rain fell in torrents, adding to the discomforts and
harassed condition of the men. The enemy, moreover, had broken their rest by a
discharge at measured intervals of heavy shells thrown from the gunboats;
therefore on the following morning the troops under my command were not in
condition to cope with an equal force of fresh troops, armed and equipped like
our adversary, in the immediate possession of his depots and sheltered by such
an auxiliary as the enemy's gunboats[17].

Following
the battle, Leonard Swett, friend and intimate[18]
of Abraham Lincoln, spent three days riding the field. His letter to the
president stated:

From all I could learn I believe the gunboats Lexington and Tyler, commanded by Lieutenants Gwin and Shirk, saved our army
from defeat. At least it is within bounds to say they rendered us invaluable
services.[19]

The
vital contribution of the gunboats was well recognized in the South. On 18 April 1862 the New
OrleansDailyDelta hit upon the key to Union
victory—and wrote what may pass for the epitaph of the entire Southern war
effort:

“[The battle at Shiloh] has taught us
that we have nothing to fear from a land invasion of the enemy if he is
unsupported by his naval armaments. It has taught us that the right arm of his
power in this war is in his gunboats on our seacoast; and that our only
assurance of saving the Mississippi from his grasp is to paralyze that arm upon
its waters.”[20]

The
Battlefield: Malvern Hill

“The
great obstacle to operations is the presence of the enemy’s gunboats”

Almost three months later, in Virginia, another Union Army
stood on the brink of defeat. Union General George McClellan’s Peninsular
Campaign to capture Richmond had turned sour when Robert E. Lee took command of
opposing Confederate forces. In a week-long series of battles, Lee succeeded in
pushing the invaders away from the capital, harrying them as they retreated
along the James. At the end of June, the victorious Rebels were poised to push
the Yankees into the river. Sensing disaster, McClellan sought refuge under the
guns of the Navy at its station near Malvern Hill, sending to Flag Officer Louis
Goldsborough the following:

I
would most earnestly request that every gunboat or other armed vessel suitable
for action in the James
River
be sent at once to this vicinity . . . for the purpose of covering the camps and
communications of this army. May I urge that not an hour be lost and that you
telegraph to the Navy Department reporting the request I make.[21]

The
local naval commander, Commodore John Rodgers of U.S.S. Galena, echoed McClellan’s plea:

The
enemy presses the army; it rests upon the James River and needs all the
support which gunboats can give. Please send all of them which you can spare.
Please also send up ammunition immediately . . . No tiring at the present
moment.[22]

A
private communication from Rodgers described the situation in grimmer terms:

The
army is in a bad way; the gunboats may save them, but the points to be guarded
are too many for the force at my disposal. To save the army . . . demands
immediately all our disposable force. The use for more gunboats is pressing and
immediate. Now, if ever, is a chance for the Navy to render most signal service,
but it must not delay[23].

The
majority of histories credit Northern General Porter (McClellan being absent the
field)[24]
with laying a “trap” for the over-eager Lee, using the Union artillery
“mounted hub-to-hub atop the hill” to decimate the oncoming rebels.[25]
While the Union artillery did inflict heavy losses among the Confederates, it
was naval gunfire that overwhelmed the attackers. The Washington Intelligencer
reported:

The
previous roar of field artillery seemed as faint as the rattle of musketry in
comparison with these monsters of ordnance that literally shook the water and
strained the air. . . . They fired about three times a minute, frequently a
broadside at a time, and the immense hull of the Galena
careened as she delivered her complement of iron and flame. The fire went on . .
. making music to the ears of our tired men. . . . Confederate ranks seemed slow
to close up when the naval thunder had torn them apart. . .[26]

Neither
side had previously seen the effects of 8-, 9- or 10-inch shells on massed
infantry. While the Navy rounds may have been “music to the ears” of
Northerners, for the Southerners they were totally unnerving. The rebels could
not respond to the ships[27]
and often could not even see them: range and target information were
communicated by flag by men of the Signal Corps ashore and afloat—making this
one of the first instances of indirect fire on shore targets.[28]
Brigade after brigade rushed from the woods across the half-mile field toward
the Union lines, only to be mown down en masse by the terrible fire. By the end
of the battle, over 5,000 Confederates lay dead or wounded; Union losses had
been barely half that number.

The
attacks were uncoordinated between divisions, such that all of the Union guns
could bear upon each column in turn; despite this, the Southerners managed to
reach the Yankee lines and capture a number of batteries. Without the naval
support, they could certainly have gone further—an opinion evidenced in
eyewitness accounts. Marine Corporal John Mackie, aboard Galena, recorded “It is
universally admitted by all those who participated in those terrible battles
that the energetic action of the Navy saved the Army.”[29]
A captain aboard one of the army transports said, “McClellan’s army would
have been annihilated but for the gunboats.”[30]
From the Confederate side, British observer Colonel Garnet Wolseley reported
“Everyone in the South will tell you that McClellan's army was saved, first by
General Lee's orders not being accurately executed, and, secondly, by his
gunboats. . ."[31]
In his report to President Davis, Lee himself pinned the Union victory on the
Navy ships: “The great obstacle to operations here is the presence of the
enemy’s gunboats which protect our approaches to him and should we even force
him from his positions on his land front, would prevent us from reaping any
fruits of victory and expose our men to great destruction.”[32]

The
Turning Point: New
Orleans

“New
Orleans
is gone, and with it the Confederacy!”

The
July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg is the accepted turning
point of the Civil War. Yet the capture of New Orleans in April 1862 had a greater
impact upon Southern fortunes than did the engagement in Pennsylvania more than a year later.

New Orleans was the largest city in the
Confederacy, its population of 160,000 dwarfing the 6,850 of the capital, Richmond.It was home to a host of machine shops refitted to produce war
materiel—including the Leeds Foundry, one of only two modern foundries in the
South.[33]
As the transshipment point for the produce of the southwest and prairie states ,
as well as being a major clearinghouse for imports, New Orleans was the wealthiest city in Dixie.[34]
Despite its obvious importance, the government in Richmond did little to defend the
city—even going so far as to strip it of resources for the sake of the rebel
army in far-off Tennessee.

This
blindness to the vulnerability of the city may be explained by the land-oriented
thinking common at the time. It was a malady that affected the governments on
both sides as well as most people in the military. As Northern Secretary of the
Navy Gideon Welles recorded of the November 1861 meeting with Lincoln in which the plan to take
the city from the sea was discussed:

The President was astonished. He had always thought in terms of moving
south down the Mississippi. His military advisers and the politically potent governors of the
Western states had reinforced this strategic notion.”[35]

Jefferson Davis similarly misidentified the Union armies in
Tennessee as the main threat to
distant New Orleans:

In the early part of 1862, so general an opinion prevailed that the
greatest danger to New Orleans was by an attack from above, that General Lovell
sent to General Beauregard a large part of the troops in that city.[36]

Neither chief executive realized the possibility or
likelihood of an attack upon New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico. The difference is that,
while Lincoln listened to Welles, Davis ignored the requests of
Mansfield Lovell, department commander for southern Louisiana. Contrary to the claims made
in his memoirs, Davis had, in fact, repeatedly refused Lovell critical supplies
and directed him to send veteran troops, artillery, and powder to Southern
armies operating far to the north—which he did only after repeated protests.[37]

On
the night of 24 April 1862, Admiral Farragut led his
squadron upstream, blasting his way past the forts at the Head of Passes. The
following day found New Orleans under the guns of the
Federal fleet. On 1 May Admiral Farragut presented the city to General Ben
Butler and the Union Army. Although it would be a year before the ramifications
of this victory would be fully realized in the North, people in the South
immediately understood the implications of “the night the war was lost.” In
far-off Richmond, Mary Boykin Chesnut
recorded prophetically:

New Orleans is gone,
and with it the Confederacy! Are we not cut in two? The Mississippi ruins us if it is lost.[38]

This same realization spread through the rebel Army of
Tennessee, which included many Louisianans. General St. John Liddell wrote,

The effect was disheartening to everyone. A growing impression of doubt as
to our final success seemed to enter the mind of every reflecting man. It was
perceptible that nothing short of superhuman efforts could save us the Mississippi River.[39]

The
loss of New Orleans was very damaging to
Southern morale, while its capture gave an incredible boost to feeling in the
North—and also weakened the peace party. Of even more import was the effect on
England and France, which looked to be on the
verge of recognizing the breakaway Confederacy. Only the week before news of the
capture reached Europe, the Illustrated London News
wrote:

The position of the Southern Confederacy has been much improved by the
events of the last month, and it will seem that it will not be very long before
there is an attempt made to terminate this fratricidal war by a mediation that
will imply recognition.[40]

In France, Confederate Commissioner
John Slidell recorded in February that: “France is prepared . . . to
recognize our government provided that Great Britain will consent to act
simultaneously with her.” In mid-April he warned Richmond that:

. . . much if not
everything will depend upon the character of the intelligence we may receive
within the next three or four weeks . . . Decided success of our arms would
ensure early recognition . . .[41]

Good news was not forthcoming, and Slidell reported of a meeting with
French Minister of Foreign Affairs Thouvenal following the news of the fall of
the city:

Although he did not directly say so, it left me fairly to infer that if
New
Orleans had not been taken and we suffered no serious reverses in Virginia and Tennessee, our recognition
would very soon have been declared.[42]

Charles Lee Lewis, biographer of Farragut, believes

There is good evidence that the failure of Napoleon III to recognize
the Confederacy and take some positive step towards bringing the war to a close
even without English cooperation was due to Farragut’s capture of New Orleans. If Farragut had
failed, it is not unlikely that, a few months later after McClellan’s army
suffered such a crushing defeat in Virginia, England, too, would have taken
steps towards bringing about peace with the establishment of the Confederate
States of America as an independent nation.[43]

The
loss of New Orleans provided tangible and
immediate benefit to the North. Its capture gave the Navy a base from which to
operate up the Mississippi and complete the job, a year later, of splitting
the Confederacy in two; conversely, it denied the Confederacy the use of the
port as a haven for blockade runners and the import of valuable war materiel.The seizure of the city and the reestablishment of Federal authority
along the Mississippi cut off much-needed supplies
of Texas beef and Louisiana salt to the eastern
Confederacy, while making these available to the occupying forces. The loss of
the Leeds Foundry reduced the modern manufacturing capacity of the Confederacy
by fifty percent, while the destruction of the nearly-completed ironclads Louisiana and Mississippi removed a major threat to
both the blockading fleet and the Union ships coming down the river. Commander
David Dixon Porter summed up Navy’s incredible victory in a letter to
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox:

New Orleans’ falling seems to
have made a stampede in ‘Secessia.’ You may put the rebellion down as
‘spavined,’ ‘broken-backed,’ and ‘wind-galled.[44]

Less
than a year after the beginning of the war, the Navy had captured the largest
and most important city in the South. Popular attention, however, was focused on
Virginia; throughout the war, the
primacy of the eastern campaigns in the popular imagination minimized the
importance of the western theater. The magnitude of the victory only slowly
became apparent.[45]

Conclusion

The dedication, heroism, and sacrifice of the men in the
armies is beyond question,[46]
but the above data and testimony of participants indicates that the U.S. Navy
played a more critical role in winning the war for the Union than is generally
acknowledged. The blockade severely impacted the South’s ability to supply its
armies and feed its people, contributing to lost opportunities on the
battlefield, dissatisfaction at home, and massive desertion. The fact that this
was a bloodless campaign does not mean it was irrelevant. At Shiloh and Malvern
Hill small numbers of Navy gunboats played a crucial part in saving important
Union armies from annihilation; such episodes of naval support were replayed
dozens of times on a lesser scale throughout the war. The independent Navy
victory at New Orleans marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy; much
hard fighting remained, but the tide was turned by Farragut’s squadron. How
did these contributions—recognized at the time by soldiers and civilians
alike—fall from our history books and public awareness? The answer may lie in
the fact that there were so many more participants ashore than afloat.

With a ratio of 26 soldiers to every sailor, the volume of
diaries, letters, articles, and unit histories was weighted in favor of the
armies from the start. After the war the number of eyewitness accounts exploded,
followed by more than a century of secondary works. The horrific land battles
that affected so many lives (soldier and civilian) were the experience of the
vast majority of the population, and eclipsed the naval aspect of the war. In
the engagements at Shiloh and Malvern Hill, the Navy’s contribution was out of
all proportion to the number of actual USN combatants: the crews of Tyler
and Lexington at Shiloh comprised roughly 100 men as opposed to 103,000
soldiers (1030:1 ratio) while those of Galena,
Jacob Bell, Mahaska, and Aroostook at
Malvern Hill were similarly outnumbered by the 175,000 soldiers involved.
Post-war publishers, with an eye towards profits and not necessarily
preservation, naturally sought to print accounts that would sell well; the
majority of readers either having been in the armies or related to someone who
was, such stories made more money than could the narrower experiences of sailors
and marines.

As later generations focused on the massive base of
soldiers’ writings, the idea that the Navy had played a minor role became
“received wisdom.”

No conflict in our history arouses passions among modern
Americans as can the Civil War. And yet many of the perceptions we hold as
truths developed after the fact and would appear foreign to the people of the
time. Salient among these is the idea that the U.S. Navy played a secondary role
in deciding the issue. The testimony of history is at odds with this perception.
While the Navy alone could not have won the war, the Union Army alone would
almost surely have lost it.

[1]
Public awareness of the Navy’s role is usually limited to Monitor
& Virginia and, perhaps, the
blockade.

[2]
Accurate numbers are impossible to agree upon. These come from
Livermore
’s “Numbers & Losses in the Civil
War” (Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, 1957).What
is important is the massive imbalance between land and sea forces.

[3]
The commissioning of cruisers to raid Northern shipping might be construed
as an offensive campaign in that it drew Union warships away from the
blockade in pursuit, but this was not conducted in conjunction with efforts
on land.

[10]
Confederate Coinage: A Short-lived Dream, by V. Samant at www.pcgs.com/articles/article3187.chtml,
August 2003.

[11]
Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Government Printing Office,
Washington, 1894 – 1922, vol. 12, pp. 772.

[12]
While some native Southerners surely indulged in profiteering, many of the
runners were owned by English firms and officered by British navy officers
on “leave.” Their stake in the war was purely monetary.

[13]
General Grant's Description of the Battle of Shiloh, From his Memoirs, at
www.swcivilwar.com/GrantMemoirsShiloh.html, August 2003.

[14]
P.G.T. Beauregard's Report of the Battle of Shiloh,
at http://www.swcivilwar.com/BeauregardShiloh.html,
August 2003.

[18]
Swett knew
Lincoln
from their days on the
Illinois
circuit court in the 1850s. Alexander
McClure observed, "Of all living men, Leonard Swett was the one most
trusted by Abraham Lincoln" (in Lincoln's Lost Speech: The Pivot of His
Career, Elwell Crissey, Hawthorn Books, New York, 1967, p. 296.)

[24]
Eye of the Storm, R. Snedan, The Free Press,
New York
, 2000, pp96-97:“He was off with Commodore Rodgers selecting a new and safer position for the army for the morrow! When the enemy
attacked us yesterday he was safe aboard the Galena
! Today he is safe enough where there is
no enemy, thus depriving all his corps and division commanders of his
abilities and counsel . . . The army was saved in spite of General
McClellan’s ignorance of the situation in front of the battle.”

[37]
Davis
went to great lengths in his memoirs to
shift the blame for the loss of
New Orleans
onto General Lovell, who had been vilified throughout the South. Yet
every claim made by
Davis
was refuted by documents that the general
had saved and presented at his inquest—a proceeding which he requested to
clear his name, and which the government in
Richmond
long delayed.